I'm Right Here
by sexiroyalti
Summary: Thrust into a past that she thought she'd left forever, Kagome deals with being summoned, albeit accidentally, as the mate of a demon who is far above marrying a human. Kag/Sess
1. The Return

I'm Right Here

Chapter 1

The Return

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha or any of the respective characters. Although I don't think I need a disclaimer because this is a FANfiction site so no one on here owns the characters. So this goes for every other chapter because I'm not writing it again.

One day. I knew that one day I would meet up with my past. My not so distant but so long ago, past. Every day I would stay in my bed for hours, dreaming and scheming. I knew. There was a way. Even if it had alluded me thus far. Even though all evidence pointed to the contrary. I knew that I would find myself back in the feudal era, united with the strings of a life once lived. The only thing I didn't know was that who I was going to be united with would be so unlike what I'd imagined. As I sat there frumpled in the grass, staring into the bulging green eyes of an imp not really worth mentioning, dread, excitement, confusion, and fear overtook my body in an emotional war so fierce that I passed out.

"Kagome, you know that it's ok, right? We'll all be perfectly fine without you." Inuyasha stood before me with his hands on his hips. His fangs were bared and his sneer of comfort was anything but.

I sat on the lip of the well.

It had been two months since the jewel had been destroyed. Two months since I had lost all confidence in my ability to return home. I had never been able to travel through time without it. I knew, no matter how much Inuyasha tried to convince me that I'd be ok, I knew it was futile. There was no way I'd return. Actually, I was pretty sure that I would get home. I knew it. But even but I was even more certain that afterwards I wouldn't get another chance to come back.

My job was done. I had no more purpose for existing in a time before my existence. My scar on Inuyasha's soul would remain just that-a semblance of remembered regret and secrets shared. I was only an event. A note in time. A lonely soul picked out of billions at random to save the past. To make way for the future.

I smiled up at him. He was still standing, awkwardly wishing me his best.

"Oh, Inuyasha. You know, I really did love you."

His cheeks flushed as he looked away, his arms folded across his chest. "Keh, even I know that. We all love you too. It's what friends are for."

I ignored the pang. His naiveté was our undoing. How could I ever be with someone too dense to even realize that my feelings were so much more than friendship? At least he refused to acknowledge it.

"You were always so honest weren't you?" I asked, standing up and placing a hand on his shoulder.

He turned to face me and I saw how his face softened. "Well, you're so. You're so…"

I was hopeful for a moment, but soon his bashfulness took over.

"You're so damn nice! Who wouldn't be?" he said matter-of-factly. His ears were red, but that was the only visible stain to show that he was trying to be nice.

"I'm ok. But hey," I straightened up feigning chipperness, "I have to go home. My mom's probably worried sick. I haven't seen her in four months!"

"Kagome…"

"But I don't think she'll give me a talking to. Hopefully she'll just be happy to see me."

"Kagome…"

I turned around, my arms upturned in a shrug. "I mean, after all these years she'll gotten pretty used to-"

"Kagome!"

I stopped and turned to face him. His eyes were shut and he grasped my shoulders so tight that I thought his claws would stab me any moment.

"Y-yes?"

"You're not coming back are you?" The way he spoke, so soft, so caring. It broke my heart all over again.

I felt myself tense up and knew he could feel it too. _Sense_ my stress. And probably smell it too. "No."

His arms dropped to his sides, eyes still downcast.

"I already said goodbye to Sango and Miroku. I decided to wait until after their wedding to leave. I really wanted to be there. I saw Shippo too, that's pretty much why he went to stay with his uncle."

About a year ago we had run into a fox demon family. It turned out to be Shippo's actual Uncle. Who would've thought he had living relatives? His father and Uncle had a falling out about seventy-five years ago, they were estranged. But I guess Lo-ji didn't hold it against little Shippo. And he felt personally responsible for not being there for his family.

I looked up at Inuyasha again. His eyes were so full of emotion that I couldn't stand it. I looked away. A few silent minutes passed. I could hear him breathing. From the corner of my eye I could see the pained rise and fall of his broad chest. I wanted to grab a hold of his haori and press my face into the rugged fabric of the firerat. I wanted to melt into his body and never leave, ever-pressed to be with him forever. Just as I was going to lose control of myself and renounce my family to be with him, Inuyasha spoke.

"Well then. You better be off. No since prolonging the unavailable."

I had to laugh, "Inevitable?""

He looked abashed. "That's what I said."

I would miss that about him. "Sure, Inuyasha."

After a little bit of a mental debate I flung my arms around his neck, feeling as he first stiffened then embraced me. I imagined that he did it tenderly. He smelled the same. Like nature. Not the stinky Tokyo outside kind of 'nature', but the feudal kind. It was such a fresh scent, flowers and trees, fields of endless grass penetrated by sun and cool breezes. You'd think they had deodorant in that time.

After sufficiently absorbing as much of him as I could, I let him go. I stepped back without another word. And without hesitating, perched myself over the edge of the well and jumped in. The last thing I saw was the shimmering amber eyes of a man grief stricken, staring after me as the blue, black, and purple void swallowed me up and sent me home.

Pain.

A hot jab to my ribs.

Again.

It hurt.

I reached out my right arm to grab whatever it was that was constantly jabbing me in my side. When I caught hold I yanked, hard, and heard an unmistakable voice squawking annoyingly over my head.

"Insolent wench! Crazy human girl! Pops out of the air then passes out of top of me! I've never—" He yelled some more and I couldn't help felt slightly nauseated that I was on _top_ of that thing.

Opening my eyes and sitting up, I winced. "Ow." I put a hand to my head where I must have hit it when I fell on it in my arrival, then after righting myself, passed out on it again.

"It hurts?! Well look at this!"

I saw that he had a huge knot on his head.

"Oh yes wench! You did this, with that hard head of yours!"

I just stared at him for a minute, completely flabbergasted that I was even there. How? How had it happened? I hadn't even tried to jump in the well. I was minding my own business in the comfort of my own living room when I was suddenly lifted from the couch and thrown into a familiar void of blue, black, and purple lights, before dropping out of the sky onto my head in the middle of a field of flowers. In the middle of the past. And worse, Jaken was my welcoming party.

"Why are you here?" I could hear myself speak. Wait. What?

"Why am I?" He sputtered. "I'm here performing a ritual and you…YOU!!!!! are who shows up. No no no no no! You are _not_ who I asked for. This is awful. Awful." He threw himself down on the grass sputtering and screaming curses at me and the Kami and at trees and other random things that I was sure did him no harm.

"What ritual?" I thought to ask.

Jaken abruptly stopped crying. His waterworks practically halting in mid-air. "What ritual? It is of no consequence to you so mind your own business!" he righted himself and stormed off, muttering words like "stupid human", "ditzy", "wretched," and "lie."

I looked around and noticed that no one was near. He was my only link to survival. Apparently he was the one who brought me here and he was going to tell me why and then fix it.

I was terrified. I knew that there was only one place that he would lead me to, and I was dreading the reunion.


	2. The Wanderer

A/N: So many people added I'm Right Here to their alert lists and favorite that I was inspired to continue. I feel especially special because it was the first chapter of my first story. Please enjoy.

Sometimes it doesn't take much for your mind to wander. It starts off slow. You don't even know what's going on. One minute you're thinking about your destination and the next your mind is somewhere back home wondering how the heck you got there in the first place. That's the beginning of the procession. The next step is something that connects your slightly out-of-whack thought to a completely off the mark topic. Now, with your mind sufficiently wandering the realms of your memories in the images you've conjured up of your home, you realize that you're hungry. You're so hungry that you get up from your perch on your mental couch and stroll on into the kitchen and open up your pantry. In the proverbial pantry you see chips, the kind you remember having eaten at Eri's barbeque on her sixteenth birthday. Eri's party was fun, you remember, you played all sorts of games. Then you remember that you even tried playing pin the tail on the donkey. Why did you play that game again? Because someone thought it would be fun. Sara. Sara thought it would be fun. Sara thought she was so cool. She'd pronounce her name as if she was an American girl. But to me it only sounded utterly ridiculous. I've never been to America. I've always wanted to go. But with all my traveling I've never gotten the chance.

Do you see my point? Why was I all the way in America when I needed to be focused on more important matters? Such as, why I out in the middle of a forest following along behind a green…thing….who had no more of a clue as to why I was there than I did? Not only did he feign innocence when I asked him countless of times, why was I lost in the Feudal era when I should have been procrastinating doing my Calculus 3 homework, but he only mumbled obscenities and insults at me. He continued to march forthright, but completely at random, further into the dark. He had no idea where we were going. I had no idea where we were going. Hence, we were lost.

"Jaken," I barked out.

He ignored me. As usual.

"Jaken," I repeated.

He continued to ignore me.

I had nothing better to do. "Jaken. Jaken. Jaken. Jaken. Jak-"

"What is it you pestering woman?!" He all but burst into flames. His fists were shaking and his left eyebrow was twitching. At least he stopped walking.

"I need to go to the little girl's room."

He only looked at me, perturbed, annoyed, and confused. "What little girl's room? We are outside woman! There are no rooms!"

Oh, well that was dumb of me. Of course he didn't know what I meant. I tried another tactic." I mean, I have to _use it_." I gave him a pointed look hoping he'd get it.

"Use _what_ girl, _what_?!"

I didn't answer, silently hoping that understand.

He didn't. He only looked at me angrier in a heated silence. I heard water drop from a leaf in the distance.

. . .

"I have to pee! Goodness do I have to spell it out?" I stormed off into the trees, highly embarrassed that I had to be so literal. "Geez, how stupid _is_ he?"

I was beyond irritated. My feet were cut and bloody. Since I had been in my house when I was taken, I hadn't been wearing anything on my feet. The makeshift bandages that I ripped from my camisole didn't really do much to dull the pain. More so, they kept debris from entering my wounds. More than anything they caused me to show off my stomach in a most undignified way.

About a month after I had been expelled from the past, I tried to do all kinds of risky things to stop thinking about it. My mother wouldn't let me bungee jump, rock climb, sky dive, cliff dive, or anything else, so I settled for going out and getting a tattoo and my belly button pierced. The tattoo wasn't showing, thank god, but the belly ring caused a stir. Jaken couldn't comprehend why there was a jewel hanging from my navel. We argued for almost thirty minutes before I made him drop the subject. I think that bleeding, possibly infected, feet was a healthy alternative than Jakes squawking beak. I was not about to go explaining body jewelry to an imp of another world. I had the time, but not the patience.

My stomach was grumbling, and I was in dire need of a shower. I suddenly remembered that I hadn't showered in more than forty-eight hours. I didn't take a shower the night before I was 'abducted', because that's what I called it, and I was sure that Jaken had been walking for close to 12 hours. Of course not without rest, if you could call it that.

For a minute I forgot my original reason for dashing off into the trees, but stepping in a puddle of water brought back the ache. I set about finding a suitable tree to do my business.

***

So. I was lost. I would say no more lost than I initially was, but there had always been the possibility that Jaken did know where he was going. That he only refused to tell me out of contempt. I was lost from where I was lost from where I was taken from. That about summed it up. In my embarrassment and racing thoughts, I had delved a little too deeply into the forest. After finding a tree and using the 'restroom', I couldn't figure out from which way I had come. I ended up flipping a coin and incidentally, I went in the wrong direction. The trees grew denser here. It was dark. Not only because of the shrouding trees, but I thought the sun might have been setting.

I reached a hand up to pick a leaf out of my hair. My scalp was itchy and oily. I felt like a wreck. If I listened to what Jaken said, I more than likely looked like one too.

I wasn't sure for how long I wandered aimlessly, but I could no longer move forward. My body had reached its limit. I wasn't used to going so long without food and water. My pilates classes didn't really prepare me for a struggle with the wilderness. The sunlight was completely gone now. It was too dark for me to make out even the slightest shapes. My world grew dark. I felt my foot snag on a loose root and I flung forward suddenly. My arms flailed around trying to grab onto something, but it was no use, I fell flat on my face. I lay there for a minute, assessing the shock and pain for a while, before trying to nestle up the strength to push myself into an upright position. When I finally managed to get my bruised and splinted hands underneath me, I felt a chill that knocked me back on my face. My arms had gone weak.

How long.

How long had it been since I had sensed a strong demonic aura? It was crushing me. My body wasn't used to it anymore. It had been three years since I was that seventeen-year-old girl, sprawled on the ground whaling, distraught, about being forced away from all she loved. Apparently three years, and a will to forget, were enough to push my keener senses aside and leave me helpless, stranded in the middle of the Feudal era, powerless to stop the coming threat.

Whatever it was, it was approaching fast.

I heard a branch snap in two.

Or it had already arrived.

'_Be still. Do not move. Don't move. It's not a bear Kagome! Ok ok. Get up. Come on, get up!_'

My liquid arms didn't budge. By now I was shivering so hard from adrenaline and fear that my teeth were chattering. I bit hard to stop it as I heard footsteps.

They sounded human. Or at least humanoid. I held my breath as they got closer. Louder. Louder still. Twigs snapped. Leaves shuffled. I shut my eyes, the pressure pushing pushing pushing until—

A soft hand touched my cheek.

All was still. Before I drifted out of consciousness I caught a flash of light, so blinding that my eyelids did nothing to shield me from it.

"Stupid Miko. Always the troubled one, aren't we?

When I woke I would forget.

***

A/N: So there you have it, chapter ni-ban! I don't think it's as somber as the first one, this one doesn't have any real flashbacks. Kagome just has rambling thoughts and I guess you don't get any real info. But it has a bit of foreshadowing. If you wanna know why Kagome's taking Calc 3, it'll come up again, promise.

Gah! I'm sick and I have a test tomorrow, but I'm already feeling so much love so I'm up writing this!(maybe it's the coffee and brownies I just had…hmm). So yeah, Please review, I'd really like to know what you guys think, seriously. Until next time….

DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN


	3. The Reunion

I'm Right Here

Chapter 3

The Reunion

Every minute or so I felt the urge to smack Jaken again. I watched his back as he stomped ahead of me gesticulating heavily and talking to himself. I almost killed him earlier. Apparently Jaken's idea of waking someone up from the most peaceful sleep one could ever get while laying on roots and tree branches, is stepping on their face. He actually put his three toed IT on my face! Of course I had been covered in dirt, and it was dark, and I had apparently covered myself with leaves in a makeshift bed, but he still stepped on my face. I reached my hand up to my face and felt what I believed to be dried blood smeared under my nose. I was so glad that I couldn't see myself, I probably looked like something that passed through a dog. In my funk I failed to realize that the trees were getting sparser and the sunlight was starting to show more, but I did realize that the little hairs that covered my body were standing on end and my fingertips were starting to tingle. We were coming upon demons, and it wasn't just a few. Instantly I stopped moving, grasping my elbows in an attempt to shield myself. Jaken kept on marching ahead completely unaware as I slowly back away into the woods. There was no way I was going to go strutting up into a demon party and get myself eaten, or killed or worse; I thought back to Manten trying to make a hair potion out of me in my earlier days in the feudal era.

Suddenly Jaken stopped walking and rounded on me. "You!"

I looked to my left and right then put my finger to the tip of my nose. "Me?"

"Yes you! You weren't meant to be the one who showed up but you did! My magic is flawless!" His hands flew into the air and I almost thought his eyes were going to explode when he said the word flawless. "So there must be a good reason why a wretched woman like you showed up when I tried to find his mate!"

I sputtered for a second, forgetting the auras that I felt, and laughed, if not a little maniacally. " Are you trying to tell me you brought me here to _bed_ Sesshoumaru."

"I refuse to even…disgusting…it was a spell to find him a woman! A new leader because all the eld—"

"I'm not going to _mate_ him. I'm not some dog. And he'd probably kill me if I even implied something like that. He'll probably kill me for being there when I show up!" I tugged at my shirt a little and heard it rip at my chest.

'_Oh great, now he's going to think I'm some kind of whore.'_

I looked over to Jaken who was growing more and more deranged looking. "What to do! What do I tell Lord Sesshoumaru? She followed me, yes, that should work. No no he'll know I'm lying! Why did the filthy human woman follow me?!" He began wailing and insulting me even more as if I wasn't standing right there, and just as I decided to tell Jaken to screw off and that I'll find my own way home, I heard a voice through the trees.

"Master Jaken?"

I followed closely behind the Rin look-alike.

Upon first glance I thought she was Rin, but her hair color was too light and her face was a touch to angular. She turned out to be Rin's great granddaughter. Apparently It had been about eighty or so years since I had left. Rin died about twenty years ago. I imagined that Miroku and Sango would be more than a hundred years-old now, but I refused to entertain that thought. I focused on looking at Haruna, who kept peaking at me over her shoulder. Although she was barefoot and wild like her ancestor, her way of walking was much more graceful and her manner of speaking was had an elegance to it. She made me feel oddly self-conscious; her in her light cotton kimono patterned with the most beautiful Cherry Blossoms and obi that was so magnificently tied that there was no way that she of Sesshoumaru had done it, and me in my torn tank top and frumpled jeans and dirt-splattered everything else. I crossed my arms over my stomach, a gesture Rin didn't miss as she continued to look at me over her shoulder.

"What is that?" she asked, her eyes trained on my middle.

"What's what?"

She smiled and placed her hands, which were actually covered in a layer of dirt, over my arms and pried them off my stomach. We both stopped walking.

"What is this jewel?"

"Oh, it's a piercing. It's called a bellybutton-ring."

"A ring?" She looked curious. "Like the kind kings wear on their fingers."

I started walking again and she followed. "Think of it more as body art."

She nodded in understanding. She kept silent for a while, and I noticed how different she really was from Rin, who would have been talking non-stop. "Kagome, are you going to marry Lord Sesshoumaru?"

I tripped and managed to catch myself before I fell on my head again. "Where is everyone getting this crazy idea from?"

Haruna smiled. "Something about Lord Sesshoumaru needs to take a woman or else there's going to be some big uprising. And then Jaken said he would find—"

"Be quiet you insolent girl!" Jaken squawked out of nowhere.

"—someone then he left and hasn't come back in three days. So did he find you?"

"Oh. Well. I'm just passing through. I have to find my way home because _someone_ brought me here without asking."

Haruna giggled and skipped ahead, kicking Jaken off the path and motioning for me to follow.

For the rest of the walk we talked about her favorite things to do and what she was doing when she came across me and the imp. She was saying something about a beautiful servant than was supposed to be arriving with Sesshoumaru's cousin that afternoon when we broke through the tree line and wandered into a wondrously beautiful garden. Haruna continued to skip ahead of me, picking a few flowers along the way and sticking them in her hair.

"I'll give you some too, but first we need to get you a bath."

"Oh that's way too much. I wouldn't want to intrude." Or get disemboweled.

But she wasn't listening to me; she was smiling at the flowers and plants and bowing as we came across what I assumed to be servants. We followed a path that led to one of the most gorgeous palaces that I had ever seen. It beat anything that I had ever seen in Kyoto and I thought that in four or five-hundred years it wouldn't be there anymore. Haruna snapped me out of my reverie when she cusped my hand and pulled me passed the staring faces and into a doorframe that was almost large enough to fit Sesshoumaru in his is true form. She pulled me a hallway that was minimally decorated but still exuded wealth.

I tried to reason with her. "Haruna! I'm sure you are trying to be nice but I don't think that this is a good idea…."

She stopped mid-step as a group of three men approached, two I had never seen before and one whose platinum hair and narrowed eyes I could never forget.

"Se-Sesshoumaru."

The moment I looked into his eyes I was frozen. I was pierced by a cold so deep that I could feel my body shivering. The way Sesshoumaru looked at me made me feel more insignificant than a single grain of sand in a desert as expansive as the ocean. His distaste at my appearance or presence, his sheer hate drenched my body and sunk into my blood. I wanted to shrink into my skin and retreat from his sight. Disappear into the air and cease to exist.

After about a second the moment was over. Sesshoumaru had continued walking, his comrades following until he disappeared from my sights, until his men's footsteps could no longer be heard.

That one glance. That single second made me wonder what was wrong with me. Why the hell was I even there? Of course I didn't think that he would be happy to see me exactly, but that greeting was humiliating. Not only that, but there was disappointment in his gaze. Why would he be disappointed in me? At me? Maybe Jaken was dumb enough to tell Sesshoumaru of his attempt to summon his Lord a lover. He wouldn't be that stupid. Even if he had, it probably still wouldn't add up to my level of idiocy for even walking into his home.

Once again I was snapped out of my thoughts. "Ow!" I yelled while grasping my knee and hopping up and down on one foot. I looked down at the green thing that wielded his staff at me_. "Did you hit me in the shin?"_

My mind completely refocused and I glared an army of sharpened katana in Jakes direction.

"Yes! Don't stare off into space. I don't want to be associated with ditzy girls."

"Ditzy?" I said, incredulous.

"Yes, ditzy! Besides," he turned around a staggered a little, "did you see Lord Sesshoumaru's face? He was so angry. He'll kill me! Kill me, my Lord! I have failed you!" He threw himself on the floor attacking it with his fists and a barrage of tears.

Through this entire exchange, Haruna remained silent staring off behind Sesshoumaru and the men he was with. I looked back at the thing defiling the floor. Jaken always confused me. He always went off talking to himself before he finished a thought. I looked down to his obnoxiously sobbing form and swung my foot as hard as I could. When he was airborne I turned back towards the garden to start my journey to find a way home. Jaken's screams of pain and anger trailed behind me, and I noted that the fifteen year-old girl didn't. I kept walking, determined to forget that it had ever happened and determined to ignore the feeling of sadness that lingered in my gut.

A/N: So, this semester was super super busy. In my free time I literally sat down and did nothing. I was looking through a notebook and I found where I actually had written Kagome and Sesshoumaru's firs sighting of each other, then I wrote out the entire plot for this and now I'm happy. So I started writing on my phone and POOF! Here's a chapter. Sorry for the wait, I'll try to update as much as possible, maybe it'll be easier with less class. Eff college BOOOO!!!!

Please Review. I really appreciate feedback. And I was pretty shocked that so many people thought Sesshoumaru was the demon at the end of the last chapter, he's not so nice and tender. =)

[disclaimer: I am not telling you not to go to college. You should definitely go to college.]


End file.
